


burial of the stars

by omphale23



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen, Snippets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-14
Updated: 2010-03-14
Packaged: 2017-10-08 00:17:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/70747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/pseuds/omphale23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He makes it through the afternoon, using the smattering of German he's managed to remember and feeling Dick's gaze on him for long moments, watchful and unsure. Nix ignores it and keeps questioning, as if anyone could explain this place, these people, their fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burial of the stars

**Author's Note:**

> Luckily, I roped **sansets** and **gblvr** into beta duties.

Nix doesn't crack until they've left the camp behind.

He makes it through the afternoon, using the smattering of German he's managed to remember and feeling Dick's gaze on him for long moments, watchful and unsure. Nix ignores it and keeps questioning, as if anyone could explain this place, these people, their fate.

No one can. No one tries. He holds it together until the jeep slows to turn onto the road toward town, and then he suddenly isn't fine at all. Nix tips over the side and onto the gravel, runs for the trees and drops to his knees beside a ditch.

Dick's voice follows him there. He shakes it off and kneels against a tree, hangs his head down and tries to breathe, shallow and slow. As he hears boots thud toward him, Nix gives up and heaves, his fingers knotted in weeds. First the whiskey and then breakfast and still he retches, coughs until he gags, until tears leak from his sealed eyes and he's afraid he'll never be able to exhale again.

Nix can't get any air and that's just fine, he doesn't want to breathe or think or look at the world. He just wants to kneel and empty this awareness onto the ground. He wants to be hollow, transparent, nothing at all.

Dick's hand is warm curled over his shoulder. Nix chokes again, because the worst knowledge is that he's not sliding under from what they've seen, what they've had to do. He's cut strings in the dirt, is digging a hole with bare fingers because tonight Dick will ask if anyone saw this coming, if anyone knew about this horror, and Nix will answer _no_. He'll spend the rest of his life trying to forget that he once had a real friend, a good man who loved him, and still told that lie.


End file.
